love in the time of science - chapter eight (part 2)
Here's part two of chapter eight. Make sure you read part one first.
Also, like I said, eljay is mean to me, so this picks up oddly after the flashback, and hopefully you are not too confused. Because I know I am after posting all of this. Seriously, eljay? Why such a bitch? *headdesk*
Title: Love in the Time of Science
Author: Morgen
Summary: Love. Tragedy. The things we’ve left unsaid. This is their story. Set after episode 5.05.
Disclaimer: I am not famous. I do not own TV shows. I am a poor college student with a laptop and a serious procrastination habit.
Rating: Written for grownups.
Derek raked his hand back through his hair as the memory faded and the clinical trial paperwork slid into focus again. He never did get her that diving board. Addison had shown up, and he’d had to watch as all the trust and all the adoration bled from Meredith’s eyes. He scrawled his signature across the line marked for the treating physician and tried not to hate himself for that. Her eyes had changed. He had been back to the dock since then, but never with her. Only to fish, never to swim. The next time Derek had held her in the water, she’d been a breath away from dead. He didn’t want to know how his own eyes had changed after that.
He signed the next three forms in quick succession, feeling nauseas. She could swim like a fish, and she hadn’t. She could swim, and an ugly voice inside his head said it could happen again. Maybe not in the water. Maybe some other way. But he knew the things her mother did to her mind, and it scared him. He wasn’t supposed to know what it was like to hold her corpse.
Derek turned to his computer, trying to force it all from his mind and prepare. He opened the file that held the data from the first round of the trial. Did he want to tweak the viral cocktail? Did he even have time? Sarah’s next seizure could easily be her last. He stared at the screen until the numbers blurred, finding no solace there. It would be a long night. He hadn’t even solved the problem of paging Meredith or letting the case slip by without her notice. His gut twisted with something that felt like guilt, but he shoved it away. It was just one case; she shouldn’t even be at work today. It couldn’t hurt, and if Sarah died… Meredith shouldn’t have to see the child die. What if that was enough to do it? That fucking proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and left her for dead. It could happen again. Derek slammed his hand down against the desk and stared blindly at the picture of his lover’s face. What was the measure of enough? He had to find it before she did.
He gathered up the paperwork and left his office. Meredith flashed into his mind with the rhythm of his footsteps. He saw her diving into the water like a swan. He saw her dead. He saw her senseless in the shower. In the tub. Dead. All of this had happened before. Derek felt lost inside a screaming, hideous pattern. All of it was happening again. He was a shell of himself when he reached the nurses’ station, collapsing under the weight of slick, nauseating fear.
“Here,” he muttered, thrusting the forms at the first nurse he saw. He forgot to smile and forgot to say her name. Or thank you. Or anything else that marked him as the sort of civilized, polite person he generally took pride in being. He forgot to care too.
“What’s this?” she asked with a glance down at the papers.
“Clinical trial paperwork,” said Derek. He wondered if his voice sounded as hollow to her as it did inside his head. “There’s a new admittant.” He shrugged. “It needed my signature.”
She nodded and hurried off with the papers. Derek was about to turn away when he heard someone to the right of him clear their throat pointedly. He glanced down to find Bailey at his elbow, her arms folded over her chest.
“Clinical trial paperwork?” she echoed.
“Um…” Derek blinked, filling up quickly with an inexplicable dread. “Yes.”
“I was under the impression that wasn’t starting for a few weeks,” said Bailey.
“It wasn’t. One of the candidates has been worsening drastically though, so…” He shrugged again. Everything felt heavy. “It’s been pushed up.”
Bailey nodded, her brows drawing down in a frown. “Well, I had her prepping my bowl resection, but one of her interns should be able to handle that.”
“What?”
“Grey,” said Bailey. She rolled her eyes. “The Chief has made it very clear to me that she is grandfathered into the trial under the old rules.”
“Oh…that,” said Derek weakly.
Bailey made a soft, scuffing sound, full of disapproval, clearly misinterpreting his response. “Yes, that.” She scowled up at him. “You’d think the man would be a little less keen on the old rules since he cites them as the reason for everything wrong around here. The number twelve ranking. Dr. Burke leaving. I’m sure he even blames the flood damage on the old rules! But, apparently you refuse to get on with the business of making medical history without her by your side, so…Grey’s all yours. Let her know I okayed it,” said Bailey, turning to walk away.
“Wait,” said Derek, feeling as if the ground was crumbling out from beneath his feet. Bailey looked back at him, and he was caught in the crossfire. The words slipped out before he could stop them. “She can stay on the bowel resection.” Or go home. She shouldn’t even be here today. His breathing was ragged, and he tried to smile like it was normal.
“What’s this nonsense?” asked Bailey. “After all the times you’ve requested that girl, I take time out of my busy day to do you a favor, and suddenly you don’t want her?” Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “Is this some lovers’ spat?”
“No,” said Derek. He shook his head, his eyes suddenly stinging with the threat of tears. “It’s not that.” His voice was rough and wounded. Bailey just looked at him, her head cocked slightly as if to say go on. Elaborate. He swallowed hard and tried to breathe. His fear had him like the jaws of a garbage truck, crushing the air out of his lungs in one long, wheezy note. “I don’t…” He scrubbed his hands up over his face and back through his hair. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
“I’m to understand there’s a problem here?” asked Bailey. Derek gave a weak nod but stayed silent. Bailey exhaled loudly, her hands finding her hips. “With Grey?” she pressed, using a tone that made him feel like a scolded child.
He stared down at the ground only to find the tile held no comfort for him. He tried the ceiling and found nothing there either. When he risked Bailey’s eyes, they were softer than he’d expected and he managed a tense little jerk of his head. “Yes,” he said quietly, trying not to notice how much the word felt like a betrayal.
“Okay,” said Bailey, frowning at him. She paused, but Derek stayed silent. “Care to elaborate? There’s a problem with one of my residents that I need to know about?”
“No, it’s not…. I don’t know.” He hesitated. There were no rules for this. He didn’t know what to say.
Bailey shifted her weight from foot to foot. He could feel her growing impatience. “If you have a problem with your little girlfriend, the two of you need to work it out yourselves. If you want me to know something about one of my residents, you’ve got about thirty seconds here.”
Derek moaned, casting a nervous glance around the nurses’ station. “Miranda, it’s complicated.”
She snorted. “It’s always complicated with you and your women.”
“Woman,” he corrected automatically. “There’s only one.”
“These days,” said Bailey. Her eyes narrowed. “That what this is about? You been sniffing someone new in the elevator?”
“What?” Derek shook his head, feeling alarmed. “Meredith’s the only one I’ve been,” he wrinkled his brow, “…sniffing.” He took a deep breath. Bailey was about to walk away, and he’d be left just as lost as he’d been all morning. He looked down at the ground, steeling himself to speak. “She shouldn’t be here,” he said at last. “She shouldn’t be working today.”
“Right. I don’t have time to play twenty questions with you,” said Bailey. Her voice was brisk and businesslike, but there was a hint of something kind in her eyes. “Care to tell me what’s really going on?” Derek shook his head, staring down at the ground. He didn’t know what to say other than she shouldn’t be working. She should be home and safe. She shouldn’t have to worry about anyone else’s life. Not today. “I’ve seen Grey,” said Bailey when he stayed silent. “She seems okay.”
“Yeah.” Derek laughed bitterly. “She’s good at that.” He jerked his head up to look at her and the words came spewing out, tasting foul to his tongue. “She seemed okay the day she drowned too and look how that ended.”
A strange, dark look passed across Bailey’s face. “This is about Meredith drowning?”
“It’s…” The sound of her first name weakened his resistance, and Derek gave an anguished nod, pushing a hand back through his hair. “The morning before she drowned, I knew she wasn’t okay, but I let her go to work anyway.”
Bailey was silent and watchful, and he was afraid to meet her eyes. When he finally did, she just nodded, and everything else came tumbling out.
“Only that morning doesn’t hold a candle to last night,” he said in a disbelieving rush. “I was scared, Miranda. I was actually scared out of my mind. She was so…” Derek exhaled loudly, throwing his hands up in there. “And now I don’t know,” he said with a pitiful laugh. “I’m supposed to pretend not to notice. That’s my job apparently. It’s what she likes, pretending everything’s okay. Only the last time I did that, I almost lost her.” His voice trembled a little, and his vision blurred with unspilt tears. “I can’t make that mistake again. It’d be unforgivable.”
He fell silent, looking at Bailey as the full force of what he was admitting hit him hard. Her eyes were solemn and unreadable.
“Now, I don’t…” he started to stammer. He turned away. “I should get going.”
“Come with me,” said Bailey.
“What?” Derek glanced down to find her hand on his elbow. “That’s not really necessary,” he said, but she ignored him, simply leading him away from the nurses’ station and down the hall. “Dr. Bailey,” he protested, a little louder this time, but before he could say anything else, she’d hedged him into a conference room and was shutting the door behind them. She let go of his elbow and he turned to face her. “What is this?” he asked, his voice heavy with impatience.
“There’s a lot of big ears out there,” said Bailey. “You want to start questioning your girlfriend’s mental health, your girlfriend who works in this very hospital, do your relationship a favor and don’t broadcast your doubts to the entire nurses’ station.”
Derek gave a defensive shake of his head. “I wasn’t questioning her mental health,” he said.
“You were.” Bailey crossed her arms over her chest. “You think that girl drowned herself.”
“I…” Derek dropped into a chair, feeling a weight far greater than his own body push him down. “She says she was knocked in, and I believe her. I do, but I’ve seen her swim, and she’s… She practically grew up in a pool. She shouldn’t have had any trouble making it to the dock, but she didn’t even try.” He shrugged, staring bleakly down at the checkered blues and browns of the conference room carpeting. “She just gave up.”
There was a sudden squeak, and Derek looked up to see Bailey taking the seat across from him. She nodded, encouraging him to continue. If she was shocked, she hid it well.
“It’s her mother,” he said, finding an unexpected relief in saying these things out loud. It gave the fear somewhere else to bounce around other than inside his head. “Her mother did things, said things. Things I can’t talk about. Meredith wouldn’t want me to say…”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” interrupted Bailey gently.
Derek nodded, taking a deep breath. “I think she thinks she’s worthless. Sometimes. When she gets like this, and I don’t… I don’t know how to help her.”
Bailey frowned and leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly together. “Do you think she’s an actual danger to herself?” she asked, her voice cautious.
“No… I don’t know.” He started counting the checks on the carpet. There were thirteen between his right foot and his left. He moved his toes over a little. Fourteen. Fifteen. “I just think she shouldn’t be running around being a doctor right now,” he muttered, still counting the squares. “She should maybe…” He moved his toes again. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. He took a deep breath and blurted it out, “She should maybe talk to one herself.” He chanced an uncertain glance at Bailey only to find her nodding, her expression intent. Derek rocked back in his chair. “I can’t do anything about it though,” he said with an unhappy shrug.
“You’re here boss,” said Bailey. “You know as well as I do that there are forms you can fill out, ways to request a psych consult if you really think she’s a danger to her patients.”
“She’d never hurt a patient,” said Derek instantly. “Never,” he repeated, anger flickering through his veins like hot little flames. But he hadn’t put her on the trial, hadn’t trusted her with that, and the anger burnt out far too fast. The room was perfectly still, but he felt like it was reeling. “And I couldn’t,” he said quietly. “I’d be taking everything she finally trusted me with and throwing it right back in her face. That’s all she’d see.”
Bailey stayed silent, watching him. He tried to smile but it fell apart, and he buried his face in his hands instead, laughing bitterly.
“You know, normally I don’t have any trouble being her boss and her boyfriend. Normally, I’m proud of how good we are at having two different relationships at the same time, but…not with this. I can’t be both for this.” He drew in a shuddering breath and straightened up, bleary eyed and brokenhearted. “She’s made that very clear,” he said quietly. “I get to sit back and wait.”
Bailey just shook her head, holding out a hand. “Maybe you can’t be her boss with something this personal, but you can be her boyfriend. Don’t sit back and wait. Be with her. Help her.”
“Meredith doesn’t want any help,” said Derek.
“Does she know how frightened you are?”
“What?”
“Does she understand? Have you talked to her about how much this is worrying you?”
“No, ah…I don’t want to bother her,” muttered Derek, looking down at the ground. “She has enough to deal with.”
“But she’s not dealing with it,” said Bailey. “Not according to you. Look, whatever happened to her? Isn’t there a chance that she’s used to it hurting? That she doesn’t need to deal with it because that’s just the way it always is?”
Derek gave a weak nod. “Yeah…” Always. Since she was five. Plenty of time to get used to the pain.
“If you make her see it’s hurting you too, that girl might start to change her tune.”
“But what do I do about work, Bailey?” he asked as she stood up and straightened her lab coat. “What do I do?”
“Hey, I have no problem being her boss,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not sending her home for you, but she can supervise the interns in the pit. If she’s distracted down there, it won’t be the end of the world.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking up in a rush of relief and gratitude.
“You’re still going to have to have a conversation with her about the trial,” said Bailey. “I’m just buying you some time. And not much time at that. You know how fast gossip travels. I wouldn’t count on more than an hour before Grey knows that patient’s here.”
Derek chuckled dryly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Bailey walked to the door but stopped with her hand on the doorknob, glancing back at him. “I’ll keep an eye on her too, Derek,” she said. Her voice was gentle, and she gave him a reassuring smile.
“Thanks, Miranda,” he said quietly. He watched her vanish from view, lost to the constant chaos of the hospital, before dragging himself to his feet as well. He had to think of what to say to Meredith.
-----
So, yeah. This chapter is very much about Derek worrying and worrying and worrying. He gets to work still upset about how things went with Meredith that morning and immediately finds himself having to deal with the clinical trial and a patient that really, really needs him to go ahead and operate now, not three weeks from now. Three weeks from now would be much better for him and his relationship with Meredith, but Sarah doesn’t have three weeks. And he desperately wants to save Sarah because bad things shouldn’t happen to children and here’s this tiny little girl who’s dying. Sarah is very close in age to the Meredith who watched her mother slit her wrists, and, while his mind isn’t connecting the two in any outright way that he’s aware of, it’s definitely there in his subconscious. Saving Sarah feels a lot like saving Meredith to him. Impossible but absolutely necessary. But, the one person who is basically the heart and soul of the trial, the one who kept him going the first time he did this…he can’t bring himself to page her. Because while it’s great he was there for her when she was falling apart, it was also incredibly terrifying for him. Because he’s swam with her, and he knows there’s no way she should’ve drowned. All of this feels like a repeat of what happened before to Derek, and he really believes that something’s wrong with her. He ends up spilling it to Bailey because he had to let it out. Keeping all of his fears bottled up inside was getting to be too much. He was doing it to keep from burdening Meredith, but it was starting to become physically painful for him. And he trusts Bailey and her opinions, and, well, now she knows too. And yeah, that’s about it for this chapter. Thank you for reading!
Also, like I said, eljay is mean to me, so this picks up oddly after the flashback, and hopefully you are not too confused. Because I know I am after posting all of this. Seriously, eljay? Why such a bitch? *headdesk*
Title: Love in the Time of Science
Author: Morgen
Summary: Love. Tragedy. The things we’ve left unsaid. This is their story. Set after episode 5.05.
Disclaimer: I am not famous. I do not own TV shows. I am a poor college student with a laptop and a serious procrastination habit.
Rating: Written for grownups.
Derek raked his hand back through his hair as the memory faded and the clinical trial paperwork slid into focus again. He never did get her that diving board. Addison had shown up, and he’d had to watch as all the trust and all the adoration bled from Meredith’s eyes. He scrawled his signature across the line marked for the treating physician and tried not to hate himself for that. Her eyes had changed. He had been back to the dock since then, but never with her. Only to fish, never to swim. The next time Derek had held her in the water, she’d been a breath away from dead. He didn’t want to know how his own eyes had changed after that.
He signed the next three forms in quick succession, feeling nauseas. She could swim like a fish, and she hadn’t. She could swim, and an ugly voice inside his head said it could happen again. Maybe not in the water. Maybe some other way. But he knew the things her mother did to her mind, and it scared him. He wasn’t supposed to know what it was like to hold her corpse.
Derek turned to his computer, trying to force it all from his mind and prepare. He opened the file that held the data from the first round of the trial. Did he want to tweak the viral cocktail? Did he even have time? Sarah’s next seizure could easily be her last. He stared at the screen until the numbers blurred, finding no solace there. It would be a long night. He hadn’t even solved the problem of paging Meredith or letting the case slip by without her notice. His gut twisted with something that felt like guilt, but he shoved it away. It was just one case; she shouldn’t even be at work today. It couldn’t hurt, and if Sarah died… Meredith shouldn’t have to see the child die. What if that was enough to do it? That fucking proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and left her for dead. It could happen again. Derek slammed his hand down against the desk and stared blindly at the picture of his lover’s face. What was the measure of enough? He had to find it before she did.
He gathered up the paperwork and left his office. Meredith flashed into his mind with the rhythm of his footsteps. He saw her diving into the water like a swan. He saw her dead. He saw her senseless in the shower. In the tub. Dead. All of this had happened before. Derek felt lost inside a screaming, hideous pattern. All of it was happening again. He was a shell of himself when he reached the nurses’ station, collapsing under the weight of slick, nauseating fear.
“Here,” he muttered, thrusting the forms at the first nurse he saw. He forgot to smile and forgot to say her name. Or thank you. Or anything else that marked him as the sort of civilized, polite person he generally took pride in being. He forgot to care too.
“What’s this?” she asked with a glance down at the papers.
“Clinical trial paperwork,” said Derek. He wondered if his voice sounded as hollow to her as it did inside his head. “There’s a new admittant.” He shrugged. “It needed my signature.”
She nodded and hurried off with the papers. Derek was about to turn away when he heard someone to the right of him clear their throat pointedly. He glanced down to find Bailey at his elbow, her arms folded over her chest.
“Clinical trial paperwork?” she echoed.
“Um…” Derek blinked, filling up quickly with an inexplicable dread. “Yes.”
“I was under the impression that wasn’t starting for a few weeks,” said Bailey.
“It wasn’t. One of the candidates has been worsening drastically though, so…” He shrugged again. Everything felt heavy. “It’s been pushed up.”
Bailey nodded, her brows drawing down in a frown. “Well, I had her prepping my bowl resection, but one of her interns should be able to handle that.”
“What?”
“Grey,” said Bailey. She rolled her eyes. “The Chief has made it very clear to me that she is grandfathered into the trial under the old rules.”
“Oh…that,” said Derek weakly.
Bailey made a soft, scuffing sound, full of disapproval, clearly misinterpreting his response. “Yes, that.” She scowled up at him. “You’d think the man would be a little less keen on the old rules since he cites them as the reason for everything wrong around here. The number twelve ranking. Dr. Burke leaving. I’m sure he even blames the flood damage on the old rules! But, apparently you refuse to get on with the business of making medical history without her by your side, so…Grey’s all yours. Let her know I okayed it,” said Bailey, turning to walk away.
“Wait,” said Derek, feeling as if the ground was crumbling out from beneath his feet. Bailey looked back at him, and he was caught in the crossfire. The words slipped out before he could stop them. “She can stay on the bowel resection.” Or go home. She shouldn’t even be here today. His breathing was ragged, and he tried to smile like it was normal.
“What’s this nonsense?” asked Bailey. “After all the times you’ve requested that girl, I take time out of my busy day to do you a favor, and suddenly you don’t want her?” Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “Is this some lovers’ spat?”
“No,” said Derek. He shook his head, his eyes suddenly stinging with the threat of tears. “It’s not that.” His voice was rough and wounded. Bailey just looked at him, her head cocked slightly as if to say go on. Elaborate. He swallowed hard and tried to breathe. His fear had him like the jaws of a garbage truck, crushing the air out of his lungs in one long, wheezy note. “I don’t…” He scrubbed his hands up over his face and back through his hair. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
“I’m to understand there’s a problem here?” asked Bailey. Derek gave a weak nod but stayed silent. Bailey exhaled loudly, her hands finding her hips. “With Grey?” she pressed, using a tone that made him feel like a scolded child.
He stared down at the ground only to find the tile held no comfort for him. He tried the ceiling and found nothing there either. When he risked Bailey’s eyes, they were softer than he’d expected and he managed a tense little jerk of his head. “Yes,” he said quietly, trying not to notice how much the word felt like a betrayal.
“Okay,” said Bailey, frowning at him. She paused, but Derek stayed silent. “Care to elaborate? There’s a problem with one of my residents that I need to know about?”
“No, it’s not…. I don’t know.” He hesitated. There were no rules for this. He didn’t know what to say.
Bailey shifted her weight from foot to foot. He could feel her growing impatience. “If you have a problem with your little girlfriend, the two of you need to work it out yourselves. If you want me to know something about one of my residents, you’ve got about thirty seconds here.”
Derek moaned, casting a nervous glance around the nurses’ station. “Miranda, it’s complicated.”
She snorted. “It’s always complicated with you and your women.”
“Woman,” he corrected automatically. “There’s only one.”
“These days,” said Bailey. Her eyes narrowed. “That what this is about? You been sniffing someone new in the elevator?”
“What?” Derek shook his head, feeling alarmed. “Meredith’s the only one I’ve been,” he wrinkled his brow, “…sniffing.” He took a deep breath. Bailey was about to walk away, and he’d be left just as lost as he’d been all morning. He looked down at the ground, steeling himself to speak. “She shouldn’t be here,” he said at last. “She shouldn’t be working today.”
“Right. I don’t have time to play twenty questions with you,” said Bailey. Her voice was brisk and businesslike, but there was a hint of something kind in her eyes. “Care to tell me what’s really going on?” Derek shook his head, staring down at the ground. He didn’t know what to say other than she shouldn’t be working. She should be home and safe. She shouldn’t have to worry about anyone else’s life. Not today. “I’ve seen Grey,” said Bailey when he stayed silent. “She seems okay.”
“Yeah.” Derek laughed bitterly. “She’s good at that.” He jerked his head up to look at her and the words came spewing out, tasting foul to his tongue. “She seemed okay the day she drowned too and look how that ended.”
A strange, dark look passed across Bailey’s face. “This is about Meredith drowning?”
“It’s…” The sound of her first name weakened his resistance, and Derek gave an anguished nod, pushing a hand back through his hair. “The morning before she drowned, I knew she wasn’t okay, but I let her go to work anyway.”
Bailey was silent and watchful, and he was afraid to meet her eyes. When he finally did, she just nodded, and everything else came tumbling out.
“Only that morning doesn’t hold a candle to last night,” he said in a disbelieving rush. “I was scared, Miranda. I was actually scared out of my mind. She was so…” Derek exhaled loudly, throwing his hands up in there. “And now I don’t know,” he said with a pitiful laugh. “I’m supposed to pretend not to notice. That’s my job apparently. It’s what she likes, pretending everything’s okay. Only the last time I did that, I almost lost her.” His voice trembled a little, and his vision blurred with unspilt tears. “I can’t make that mistake again. It’d be unforgivable.”
He fell silent, looking at Bailey as the full force of what he was admitting hit him hard. Her eyes were solemn and unreadable.
“Now, I don’t…” he started to stammer. He turned away. “I should get going.”
“Come with me,” said Bailey.
“What?” Derek glanced down to find her hand on his elbow. “That’s not really necessary,” he said, but she ignored him, simply leading him away from the nurses’ station and down the hall. “Dr. Bailey,” he protested, a little louder this time, but before he could say anything else, she’d hedged him into a conference room and was shutting the door behind them. She let go of his elbow and he turned to face her. “What is this?” he asked, his voice heavy with impatience.
“There’s a lot of big ears out there,” said Bailey. “You want to start questioning your girlfriend’s mental health, your girlfriend who works in this very hospital, do your relationship a favor and don’t broadcast your doubts to the entire nurses’ station.”
Derek gave a defensive shake of his head. “I wasn’t questioning her mental health,” he said.
“You were.” Bailey crossed her arms over her chest. “You think that girl drowned herself.”
“I…” Derek dropped into a chair, feeling a weight far greater than his own body push him down. “She says she was knocked in, and I believe her. I do, but I’ve seen her swim, and she’s… She practically grew up in a pool. She shouldn’t have had any trouble making it to the dock, but she didn’t even try.” He shrugged, staring bleakly down at the checkered blues and browns of the conference room carpeting. “She just gave up.”
There was a sudden squeak, and Derek looked up to see Bailey taking the seat across from him. She nodded, encouraging him to continue. If she was shocked, she hid it well.
“It’s her mother,” he said, finding an unexpected relief in saying these things out loud. It gave the fear somewhere else to bounce around other than inside his head. “Her mother did things, said things. Things I can’t talk about. Meredith wouldn’t want me to say…”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” interrupted Bailey gently.
Derek nodded, taking a deep breath. “I think she thinks she’s worthless. Sometimes. When she gets like this, and I don’t… I don’t know how to help her.”
Bailey frowned and leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly together. “Do you think she’s an actual danger to herself?” she asked, her voice cautious.
“No… I don’t know.” He started counting the checks on the carpet. There were thirteen between his right foot and his left. He moved his toes over a little. Fourteen. Fifteen. “I just think she shouldn’t be running around being a doctor right now,” he muttered, still counting the squares. “She should maybe…” He moved his toes again. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. He took a deep breath and blurted it out, “She should maybe talk to one herself.” He chanced an uncertain glance at Bailey only to find her nodding, her expression intent. Derek rocked back in his chair. “I can’t do anything about it though,” he said with an unhappy shrug.
“You’re here boss,” said Bailey. “You know as well as I do that there are forms you can fill out, ways to request a psych consult if you really think she’s a danger to her patients.”
“She’d never hurt a patient,” said Derek instantly. “Never,” he repeated, anger flickering through his veins like hot little flames. But he hadn’t put her on the trial, hadn’t trusted her with that, and the anger burnt out far too fast. The room was perfectly still, but he felt like it was reeling. “And I couldn’t,” he said quietly. “I’d be taking everything she finally trusted me with and throwing it right back in her face. That’s all she’d see.”
Bailey stayed silent, watching him. He tried to smile but it fell apart, and he buried his face in his hands instead, laughing bitterly.
“You know, normally I don’t have any trouble being her boss and her boyfriend. Normally, I’m proud of how good we are at having two different relationships at the same time, but…not with this. I can’t be both for this.” He drew in a shuddering breath and straightened up, bleary eyed and brokenhearted. “She’s made that very clear,” he said quietly. “I get to sit back and wait.”
Bailey just shook her head, holding out a hand. “Maybe you can’t be her boss with something this personal, but you can be her boyfriend. Don’t sit back and wait. Be with her. Help her.”
“Meredith doesn’t want any help,” said Derek.
“Does she know how frightened you are?”
“What?”
“Does she understand? Have you talked to her about how much this is worrying you?”
“No, ah…I don’t want to bother her,” muttered Derek, looking down at the ground. “She has enough to deal with.”
“But she’s not dealing with it,” said Bailey. “Not according to you. Look, whatever happened to her? Isn’t there a chance that she’s used to it hurting? That she doesn’t need to deal with it because that’s just the way it always is?”
Derek gave a weak nod. “Yeah…” Always. Since she was five. Plenty of time to get used to the pain.
“If you make her see it’s hurting you too, that girl might start to change her tune.”
“But what do I do about work, Bailey?” he asked as she stood up and straightened her lab coat. “What do I do?”
“Hey, I have no problem being her boss,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not sending her home for you, but she can supervise the interns in the pit. If she’s distracted down there, it won’t be the end of the world.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking up in a rush of relief and gratitude.
“You’re still going to have to have a conversation with her about the trial,” said Bailey. “I’m just buying you some time. And not much time at that. You know how fast gossip travels. I wouldn’t count on more than an hour before Grey knows that patient’s here.”
Derek chuckled dryly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Bailey walked to the door but stopped with her hand on the doorknob, glancing back at him. “I’ll keep an eye on her too, Derek,” she said. Her voice was gentle, and she gave him a reassuring smile.
“Thanks, Miranda,” he said quietly. He watched her vanish from view, lost to the constant chaos of the hospital, before dragging himself to his feet as well. He had to think of what to say to Meredith.
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So, yeah. This chapter is very much about Derek worrying and worrying and worrying. He gets to work still upset about how things went with Meredith that morning and immediately finds himself having to deal with the clinical trial and a patient that really, really needs him to go ahead and operate now, not three weeks from now. Three weeks from now would be much better for him and his relationship with Meredith, but Sarah doesn’t have three weeks. And he desperately wants to save Sarah because bad things shouldn’t happen to children and here’s this tiny little girl who’s dying. Sarah is very close in age to the Meredith who watched her mother slit her wrists, and, while his mind isn’t connecting the two in any outright way that he’s aware of, it’s definitely there in his subconscious. Saving Sarah feels a lot like saving Meredith to him. Impossible but absolutely necessary. But, the one person who is basically the heart and soul of the trial, the one who kept him going the first time he did this…he can’t bring himself to page her. Because while it’s great he was there for her when she was falling apart, it was also incredibly terrifying for him. Because he’s swam with her, and he knows there’s no way she should’ve drowned. All of this feels like a repeat of what happened before to Derek, and he really believes that something’s wrong with her. He ends up spilling it to Bailey because he had to let it out. Keeping all of his fears bottled up inside was getting to be too much. He was doing it to keep from burdening Meredith, but it was starting to become physically painful for him. And he trusts Bailey and her opinions, and, well, now she knows too. And yeah, that’s about it for this chapter. Thank you for reading!